Conan the Magnificent (Robert Jordan's Conan Novels 5) - Page 6

“Erlik flay your hide and stake your carcass in the sun!” the struggling woman yelled. “Derketo shrivel your stones!”

Calmly Conan met each man’s gaze in turn, and each man shivered, for his smile did not extend to those glacial blue orbs. The Kothians measured the breadth of his shoulders, calculated how encumbered he would be by the woman, and tossed the dice in the privacy of their minds.

“I wouldn’t interfere between brother and sister,” the one with hoops in his ears muttered, his eyes sliding away. Suddenly all three were engrossed in setting their stools upright.

Semiramis’ shouts redoubled in fury as Conan started for the rickety stairs that led to the second floor. He smacked a rounded buttock with his open palm. “Your sweet poetry leads me to believe yo

u love me,” he said, “but your dulcet tones would deafen an ox. Be quiet.”

Her body quivered. It took him a moment to realize she was laughing. “Will you at least let me walk, you untutored beast?” she asked.

“No,” he replied with a grin.

“Barbarian!” she murmured, and snuggled her cheek against his back.

Laughing, he took the stairs two at a time. Luck was indeed with him.

Chapter 3

The Katara Bazaar was a kaleidoscope of colors and a cacophony of voices, a large, flagstone-paved square near the Desert where sleek lordlings, perfumed pomanders at their nostrils, rubbed shoulders with unwashed apprentices who apologized with mocking grins when they jostled the well-born. Silk-clad ladies, trailed by attentive slaves to carry their purchases, browsed unmindful of the ragged urchins scurrying about their feet. Some vendors displayed their goods on flimsy tables sheltered by faded lengths of cloth on poles. Others had no more than a blanket spread beneath the hot sun. Hawkers of plums and ribbons, oranges and pins, cried their wares shrilly as they strolled through the throng. Rainbow bolts of cloth, carved ivories from Vendhya, brass bowls from Shadizar’s own metalworkers, lustrous pearls from the Western Sea and paste “gems” guaranteed to be genuine, all changed hands in the space of a heartbeat. Some were stolen, some smuggled. A rare few had even had the King’s tax paid on them.

On the morning after his attempt at Samarides’ goblet—the thought made him wince—Conan made his way around the perimeter of the bazaar, searching without seeming to among the beggars. Mendicants were not allowed within the confines of the great square, but they lined its edges, their thin, supplicating cries entreating passersby for a coin. There was a space between each ragged man and the next, and unlike beggars elsewhere in Shadizar these cooperated to the extent of maintaining that distance. Too many too close together would reduce each man’s take.

Exchanging a copper with a fruitmonger for two oranges, the big Cimmerian squatted near a beggar in filthy rags, a man with one leg twisted grotesquely at the knee. A grimy strip of cloth covered his eyes, and a wooden bowl with a single copper in the bottom sat on the flagstones before him.

“Pity the blind,” the beggar whined loudly. “A coin for the blind, gentle people. Pity the blind.”

Conan tossed one orange into the bowl and began stripping the peel from the other. “Ever think of going back to being a thief, Peor?” he said quietly.

The “blind” man turned his head sightly to make sure no one else was close by and said, “Never, Cimmerian.” His cheerful voice was pitched to reach Conan’s ear and no further. He made the orange disappear beneath his tunic of patches. “For later. No, I pay my tithe to the City Guard, and I sleep easy at night knowing my head will never go up on a pike over the West Gate. You should consider becoming a beggar. ’Tis a solid trade. Not like thieving. Mitra-accursed mountain slime!”

Conan paused with a segment of orange half-lifted to his mouth. “What?”

Barely moving his head, Peor motioned to a knot of six Kezankian hillmen, turbanned and bearded, their dark eyes wide with ill-concealed amazement at the city around them. They wandered through the bazaar in a daze, fingering goods but never buying. From the scowls that followed them, the peddlers were glad to see their backs, sale or no. “That’s the third lot of those filthy jackals I’ve seen today, and a good two turns of the glass till the sun is high. They should be running for the rocks they crawled out from under, what with the news that’s about this morning.”

The beggar got little chance between sunrise and sunset to say anything beyond his pleading cry, and the occasional fawning thanks. It could not hurt to let him talk, Conan thought, and said, “What news?”

Peor snorted. “If it was about a new method of winning at dice, Cimmerian, you’d have known of it yesterday. Do you think of anything but women and gambling?”

“The news, Peor?”

“They say someone is uniting the Kezankian tribes. They say the hillmen are sharpening their tulwars. They say it could mean war. If ’tis so, the Desert will feel the first blow, as always.”

Conan tossed the last of the orange aside and wiped his hands on his thighs. “The Kezankians are far distant, Peor.” His grin revealed strong white teeth. “Or do you think the tribesmen will leave their mountains to sack the Desert? It is not the place I would chose, were I they, but you are older than I and no doubt know better.”

“Laugh, Cimmerian,” Peor said bitterly. “But when war is announced the mob will hunt for hillman throats to slit, and when they cannot find enough to sate their bloodlust, they’ll turn their attentions to the Desert. And the army will be there—‘to preserve order.’ Which means to put to the sword any poor sod from the Desert who thinks of actually resisting the mob. It has happened before, and will again.”

A shadow fell across them, cast by a woman whose soft robes of emerald silk clung to the curves of breasts and belly and thighs like a caress. A belt woven of golden cords was about her waist. Ropes of pearls encircled her wrists and neck, and two more, as large as a man’s thumbnail, were at her ears. Behind her a tall Shemite, the iron collar of a slave on his neck and a bored expression on his face, stood laden with packages from the Bazaar. She dropped a silver coin in Peor’s bowl, but her sultry gaze was all for Conan.

The muscular youth enjoyed the looks women gave him, as a normal matter, but this one examined him as if he were a horse in the auction barns. And to make matters worse a scowl grew on the Shemite’s face as though he recognized a rival. Conan’s face grew hot with anger. He opened his mouth, but she spoke first.

“My husband would never approve the purchase,” she smiled, and walked away with undulating hips. The Shemite hurried after her, casting a self-satisfied glance over his shoulder at Conan as he went.

Peor’s bony fingers fished the coin from the bowl. With a cackle that showed he had regained at least some of his humor, he tucked it into his pouch. “And she’d pay a hundred times so much for a single night with you, Cimmerian. Two hundred. A more pleasant way to earn your coin than scrambling over rooftops, eh?”

“Would you like that leg broken in truth?” Conan growled.

The beggar’s cackles grew until they took him into a fit of coughing. When he could breathe normally again, he wiped the back of his hand across his thin-lipped mouth. “No doubt I would earn even more in my bowl. My knee hurts of a night for leaving it so all day, but that fall was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Tags: Robert Jordan Robert Jordan's Conan Novels Fantasy
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